Hello? Earth To Humans!

Earth day is coming up on April 22nd and I volunteered to do a post for it to be published today. For those that don’t know what earth day is, it’s a day America dedicates every year to environmental awareness. It gets celebrated, most people act as if they care for one day and then go back to their normal lives less than 24 hours later being the same wasteful, selfish entities that we are. Every day should be Earth Day.
I wasn’t totally sure how I was going to go about this when I signed up for it and I’m pretty much going to wing it throughout this post. In all seriousness, here I go…

Unless you were born yesterday you know that the earth and our ecological balance of nature is being disturbed by our lack of caring. BY technological advances in mankind we have discovered and created many great things to the benefit of human kind. However with every great thing we do there are consequences and repercussions. The great Isaac Newton said for every action there is an equal or opposite reaction in his third law of physics. I didn’t really think about that very much the first time I heard it in 3rd grade science class but it just goes to prove how brilliant of a man he was even if it is such a common sense type statement. Unfortunately 99% of the time we discover things by accident that advance us, we take a giant step forward but something else has to suffer in our wake.

We are so dependant on oil in this world that we drill and drill away for more fuel. This same fuel that gets us where we need to go, heats our homes and is used for the production of plastics and such, has a great effect on our environment. The exhaust from automobiles to include airplanes pollutes the air we breath. We use and use without a second thought. Plastics that are used everywhere today are not biodegradable and are almost always made from a petroleum based product. Some cd manufacturers are going to a less plastic media where the cases are made mostly of cardboard. Where we save on plastic, we use more papers from what? Trees. While the papers are biodegradable in the end, more trees are cut down in the process, so where we save a little bit of petroleum on the non-biodegradable plastics something else suffers. You would think that with music downloads becoming more popular the production of “Hard” media would lessen and in some ways it has. But the use of petroleum products on packing materials has increased greatly. Ever try opening a package to a toy or electronic device these days? It’s extremely difficult and it goes to waste as soon as it’s opened and not enough recycling programs are available. Plastics from disposable drink bottles are filling up landfills instead of being recycled or refilled. The governments should invest more money into recycling programs instead of weapons, but no matter how much presidential candidates talk about environmentalism, sadly action is rarely taken.

Celebrities to include musicians often speak on behalf of the earth but I’m always quick to question their credibility on these matters because half the time they are not passionate about the subject matter and it’s just more publicity for them. Another thing I hate is when people say “Why should I care? I’m not going to be around in a hundred years.” This has got to be the most ignorant thing to say. Your kids will be around, or maybe your grandchildren. So in other words they are saying “what’s the point? I had my fun, let our future suffer, screw it.” right? It’s bad enough right now. Can you imagine what it’s going to be like if we let it go and not do anything about it?

I live in North Carolina. I am originally from upstate NY where there are some places you are not allowed to take a motorized vehicle and you have to travel by foot to enjoy a nice fishing trip back into the forests. The air is clean, the trees are green and you can actually eat the fresh-water fish you catch. But still, the acid rain has ruined a lot of the waters and has ruined the habitat for many fish which were much more plentiful in those parts at one time. Housing has boomed everywhere and everywhere you look more land is being cleared for commercial or residential properties. By human benefit, animals lose their homes and we completely screw up the ecological balance of nature a little bit more. For what? So some developer can put up some 300K homes? The only green those type see is the green going into their pockets. Watch “The Bee Movie”, talk about a movie with a natural balance message in it.

Remember the picture of the littered field with the Native American with a tear in his eye. Some people found that funny and I really don’t know why. Or the commercial with the child and the train? That’s not funny either. It’s the truth. The past we created and the future to come. You may think,”Well how can I make a difference? I’m just one person.” Your right, you can’t make a huge difference but you can make a difference the same. By encouraging others to make an effort and starting a good trend in environmental awareness by doing little things that make a big difference. If everyone put a little bit of effort into recycling, cleaning up after themselves, and using less fuel by taking less unnecessary trips. By taking advantage of the conveniences in life we inconvenience someone or something else.

If you have read this far I commend you for two things. One, for putting up with my terrible grammar and writing that bounces all over the place. And two, for actually being interested enough think that maybe you can make a difference. Kermit the friggin’ frog said “It’s not easy being green.”. Perhaps Jim Henson was trying to say something else there. But if you just dedicate this thought for every action you do you can make a world of difference and it will become second nature. What thought is that? Think to yourself every time you do something, anything, think “How is this going to effect the environment and will it be a positive or negative effect?”. The future of Mother Earth depends on You and I.

If you want to learn more about environmental awareness, there are infinite resources on the internet. To start being a little greener you can find some great tips and links at http://www.treehuggingfamily.com/

Image Source: http://www.rps.psu.edu/probing/graphics/earth2.jpg